Breaking The Habit
by CharlieCaller
Summary: Songfic. Changes take place, some good, some bad. One event slowly changes Mikey's life for the worse, and threatens to seal his fate. See inside for warnings.


Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this story; they belong to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and related companies. I am not making any money from their use in this story. Nor do I own the song 'Breaking The Habit,' this belongs to Linkin Park and related companies. Again, not making any money from using it in this story.  
  
**Warning:** Contains violence and self-harm. Use of common sense: If this upsets/offends you, don't read. And don't say I didn't warn you.

* * *

Breaking The Habit

* * *

Guess it's always the ones you least expect.  
  
_Memories consume_

_Like picking open wounds_

_I'm picking me apart again_

_You all assume_

_I'm safe here in my room_

_Unless I try to start again_  
  
Raphael had always been the one with the short fuse, the ready store of aggression, and the tendency to seek the solitude of his room when times were tough. He took out his aggression on anyone who dared attack him, and sometimes those who didn't. He was the one that the brothers were wary of, and the one that they worried about the most.  
  
Until he changed.  
  
It wasn't a sudden change, or a complete change by any means. It was as though Raphael began grow out of his young teenage ways and began to mature, and with that gained maturity he started to lose his previous hostile manner. He retained his hard, blunt attitude and still had moments, mostly during battle, when his anger would show its face and he would lash out, but it took a lot more to get him to that stage these days. His brothers and his Master Splinter accepted his calmer nature with open arms.  
  
But whilst that noticeable change was taking place, another change was going unnoticed. The position of brooding, angry brother vacated by Raphael had been taken by one of his brothers.  
  
Michelangelo was the brother had adopted the red turtle's aggressive temperament. Though the changes did not take place overnight, there was a trigger that had set the ball rolling. Mikey had been on the rooftops one night, sketching the New York sunset, when he heard voices from below.  
  
"One last time, kid," one of the Dragons snarled. "Where is your daddy?"  
  
"I don't know," she sobbed, looking at the floor.  
  
Michelangelo abandoned his sketchbook and ventured to the edge of the building. Below, he could just about make out disturbance below. He gracefully leapt down the rusty flights of stairs attached to the side of the building, and was close enough to see some members of the Purple Dragon gang attack a young girl. She was small, couldn't have been a day over ten, with white-blonde hair and a look of pure fear in her tearful eyes.  
  
"She's had her chance," another growled.  
  
"Well, princess, if he didn't tell you then he ain't gonna miss you," the Dragon holding the girl sneered.  
  
Even before Michelangelo could blink, the man had whipped out a knife and had plunged it deep into the girl's chest. Mikey gasped to suppress the scream dying to be released from his mouth. He wanted to move to prevent the innocent murder but his body had frozen and he became stone-like. He couldn't even blink.  
  
It was an eternity before Mikey gained the strength to jump to the ground. The last of the punks had disappeared around the corner, leaving the bleeding girl. He hurried to her side and shook her slightly, hoping that by some miracle she might respond. He pressed one hand over the bleeding in her chest to try and lessen it, and felt around the girl's neck for a pulse, like Donatello had taught him to do. Nothing. She was gone.  
  
_I don't want to be the one_

_The battles always choose_

_'Cause inside I realise_

_That I'm the one confused_  
  
Mikey never told anyone about what had happened. He thought the others would blame him for the girl's death by not acting sooner. _He _blamed himself for not acting sooner. Over the months, his guilt slowly dug a deeper and deeper wound into his soul, changing his character. The changes started off as insignificant. It began with the occasional sullen mood, but the others just put this down to being a teenager. He progressively spent less time with the group, preferring to be alone with his rock music and his art. Soon, even his drawings turned from pleasurable pictures to scenes of destruction and hurt. He would sketch furiously, the thick, harsh pencil lines depicting his pain and providing a release for him.  
  
Before long the pain inside him was building up at an alarming rate, and he found that listening to the screaming lyrics and sketching his feelings and fears on paper alone was no longer a great enough outlet. Flashbacks of the incident plagued his thoughts, and nightmares reliving the episode haunted his sleep. The feelings of hurt were becoming too strong, and he needed new ways to relieve the pain. During battle with the Foot, Mikey would try and take on as many opponents as possible. His built up anger would fuel his attacks, and he would drum his nunchucks on his foe long after they were unable to battle anymore. Then he would tackle the next enemy, and then the next, sometimes even picking off enemies that were already fighting with his brothers. They didn't question it; they were too busy battling themselves to notice how much fighting Mikey was doing.  
  
Soon he began training in the dojo for hours at a time, punching and kicking the stuffed bags until he collapsed to the floor. The others were somewhat impressed with his efforts to train, but what they didn't realise was that whilst he was getting fitter; Mikey was not necessarily improving his skills. Training was merely a means of getting rid of his anger. When Splinter told him to limit his time in the dojo, so as to avoid over- exertion, Michelangelo began sneaking out in the middle of the night to train. He wanted to get the feeling of every single muscle in his body hurting. It was a bonus if he stumbled across a mugging or attack in the streets that begged to him to finish. He threw every punch for that little girl that died in the streets that night. His knuckles would be raw, sometimes bleeding, his muscles would ache and his chest would heave up and down rapidly from the exertion but it felt good. But he didn't mind if he got hurt during the fight. Sometimes the helped. It felt good.  
  
But it wasn't enough. It never was. The anger and the pain was starting to get the better of him, and constantly training and fighting was not keeping it in check. He found that the only way to compensate for his guilt for himself to feel pain.  
  
_I don't know what's worth fighting for_

_Or why I have to scream_

_I don't know why I instigate_

_And say what I don't mean_

_I don't know why I got this way_

_I know it's not all right_

_So I'm breaking the habit_

_I'm breaking the habit_

_Tonight  
_  
One night, Mikey woke up from another nightmare. He shot up in bed, kicking, screaming and gasping for breath. He dreamt that his family had discovered that he'd witnessed the death of the girl. They were angry with him for not doing anything and they blamed him for her demise. Still enraged at the nightmare, Mikey jumped out of his bed and began to furiously hit every inanimate object within reach. He pounded constantly at the walls, then his closet door, not stopping until his knuckles had smeared crimson blood over the white-coloured wood. One fist eventually struck it hard enough to go right through, leaving wooden splinters in the turtle's wrist. He wrenched his hand out and cursed loudly. In full flow, he picked up a stray dirty mug and threw it at the wall, watching as the white shards disappeared into the darkness.  
  
He turned around and saw a reflection of himself in the mirror. His face was a scowl, and his eyes looked dark and hollow, a shadow of who he was mere months ago. His ghostly appearance was not aided by the darkness, and he looked like a silhouette of himself, with a wicked gleam to his eye. He hated himself intensely.  
  
Something inside him snapped, and he lashed out, using all his strength and anger to pummel his fist straight through his face, in the mirror in front of him. It shattered into a thousand pieces, each razor-sharp edge slicing through his fist and wrist as they rained to the ground. Mikey felt strangely better than he had in some time.  
  
_Clutching my cure_

_I tightly lock the door _

_I try to catch my breath again _

_I hurt much more _

_Than anytime before _

_I have no options left again_  
  
As was inevitable, the commotion had awoken the other members of the household. Splinter was the first, having over the years trained himself to be keenly aware of disturbances since raising the turtles. He opened the door and flicked the light switch, illuminating the scene of devastation that was Mikey's bedroom. For a moment, the rat could only stare in horror.  
  
"Michelangelo, what is the meaning of this?" Splinter demanded, at a loss for any further words.  
  
By this time, the three other turtles had been roused by the clamour and had arrived to investigate. They too stared, mouths agape, at the destruction caused by the orange-banded turtle. The turtle in question stood in the middle of it all, looking at his family with an oddly calm expression.  
  
"Michelangelo? Do you have an answer?" Splinter snapped.  
  
Mikey swallowed. "I had a nightmare," he said coolly, taking an interest in the ground at that moment.  
  
Splinter's eyes widened, but he said nothing. "You will clean your wounds, clean up the mess and then return to bed. The rest of you, back to your beds," he commanded. Wordlessly Mikey left the room, aware of the four pairs of eyes watching him as he walked into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.  
  
Mikey watched distantly as the stream of red water trickled along the white porcelain sink and down into the plughole. Once the bleeding slowed down, he wrapped a clean, white bandage around his right hand and wrist, and returned to his bedroom, picking up a plastic bag from the kitchen en route. He began the task of picking up the pieces of the various objects he had broken. He found as many of the shards of the mug he could, and dropped them in the bag, before starting on the mirror. He picked up a few smaller splinters, before picking up one of the larger pieces. For a moment he stared at it, almost transfixed by it as he let it dance through his fingers. One of the edges caught sliced his green skin, and Mikey winced ever so slightly as a new trickle of blood left his body.  
  
Intrigued, Mikey studied the shard, now slightly smeared with blood. Then something inside him clicked, or snapped, and he knew what to do. Gritting his teeth, he pressed the sharp edge against the inside of his wrist and watched the scarlet liquid flow.  
  
_I don't want to be the one_

_The battles always choose_

_'Cause inside I realise_

_That I'm the one confused_  
  
No one said anything about Mikey's midnight outburst in the days following the incident. Mikey wasn't sure why. Maybe they actually fully believed the paper-thin lie of his bad dream. Maybe they didn't want to know. Maybe they were too scared to ask. Whatever the reason, the matter had been more or less forgotten and life returned to its current state of normality, and stayed as such for a number of weeks.  
  
For Mikey, normality was training in the morning, and then sitting in his room for the remainder of the day, listening to his rock music and his thoughts. At intervals, he would pull out the carefully wrapped shard from beneath his bed and add to the numerous other scars along his wrists.  
  
Mikey felt safe thinking that no one knew what was happening to him. He wore thicker wristbands to cover his cuts, and following his night-time explosion, made certain to keep his emotions in check in front of the others. Even that helped his angst-filled days; he would store up all the aggression in front of the others before letting it out alone in one large burst.  
  
Some days, the pain was so much that he had to escape the lair to let it all out. At night, he would pound the rooftops of New York, running as fast as his legs would move. He didn't know what he was running from, but it felt good. Even when his body could not take the movement of another muscle and he collapsed in a heap from exhaustion, it felt good.  
  
He needed to get out that day.  
  
_I don't know what's worth fighting for_

_Or why I have to scream _

_I don't know why I instigate _

_And say what I don't mean _

_I don't know how I got this way _

_I know it's not all right _

_So I'm breaking the habit _

_I'm breaking the habit _

_Tonight_  
  
Splinter, who was not in a particularly good mood to start with that day, reprimanded Mikey severely for exceeding his time in the dojo that day by an hour. In truth, Splinter was worried that Michelangelo was overdoing it, and that he would push himself to exhaustion, but at that time he did not voice this concern. In fact, he had several concerns over his youngest son that he wanted to voice, but he could not seem to find the right opportunity, or the right words.  
  
Mikey stormed into his room, grabbed the shard, still in the cloth, and tucked it into his belt. A few moments later he stepped back out into the main area of the lair, and saw that it seemed to be empty. Quickly, he ran out of the lair and into the sewers, not looking back. Had he looked back, he'd have seen the surprised pair of eyes watching his sharp exit.  
  
_I painted on the walls _

_'Cause I'm the one at fault_  
  
The sun was setting over a dismal New York that evening. Rain was pouring down in sheets, splattering in great puddles on the cold, concrete rooftops. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Under the mighty, threatening grey clouds, Mikey felt small. For a moment, he looked up to the sky, trails of rain running down his face, masking the tear-trails. Then he ran.  
  
Master Splinter had warned them of running through the city in the rain, and had told them to be careful in case of sliding on the slippery surface. Mikey did not care that night. He didn't care if he slipped off and rolled off the edge of the roof and to the ground below, landing with a sick thud in a crumpled heap. He didn't care if his blood spilled on the streets, only to be washed away with the rain into the sewers below. He didn't care if no one saved him like he couldn't save the little girl that night. It would be justice.  
  
_I'll never fight again_

_And this is how it ends_  
  
It happened. It was bound to, really. Mikey took a daring jump, and landed awkwardly. He continued running for a few steps in the hope that he would regain his balance, but he lost it and fell to the ground. As he hit the ground, the piece of glass in the thin cloth slipped from his belt and ripped a deep gash in his upper leg. Mikey cried out in pain as he skidded towards the edge of the roof, leaving a smeared trail of blood on the light- coloured concrete. He reached the edge, and his head filled with light- headed thoughts decided that this was the end. Time seemed to slow as he rolled off the edge, seeing the headlights from the tiny cars in the dark abyss below. For a moment he was in mid-air, waiting for the ground to come up and smack him hard.  
  
Just as it started, he felt something grasp his ankle, and instead of being hit powerfully by the ground, his face met with the side of the building he had just fallen off of. Mikey prised his eyes open and saw the cars still moving along below him, unaware of the incident taking place above. He wondered for a moment why he was still alive.  
  
"Hang on, Mikey," called the strained voice of his saviour. Mikey quickly realised who it was.  
  
"Raph! What the Hell are you doing?"  
  
"I'm saving your damn life, shell-for-brains," Raphael's gruff voice called back. "And if you _dare_ think of having it any other way, when I pull you up here I'll beat you senseless."  
  
Suddenly, Mikey didn't want to die.  
  
With strength he never thought he'd come close to possessing, Raphael hauled his brother onto the rooftops and back to safety.  
  
_I don't know what's worth fighting for _

_Or why I have to scream _

_But now I have some clarity _

_To show you what I mean _

_I don't know how I got this way _

_I'll never be all right _

_So I'm breaking the habit_  
  
Both lay there for a moment on the roof, panting furiously. One through recovering from the moment of sheer exertion, the other due to the adrenaline and fear running through him at breakneck speed.  
  
Mikey was the first to speak. "How'd you find me, Raph?"  
  
"Followed you out of the lair," Raphael replied, sitting up and looking deep into his brother's eyes. He studied those eyes for a long moment. They looked hollow and exhausted, void but at the same time full of anger, confusion, and most telling of all, fear.  
  
Raphael's looked from Michelangelo's eyes down to the blood steadily flowing from the wound in his leg. The red-banded turtle saw the cloth on the ground some way back on the roof, and hurried over to it. Only when he approached it did he notice that sticking through the cloth was the sharp point of the piece of broken mirror. On the shard was blood, some wet and new and some old, dried smears. Somehow, Raphael wasn't surprised.  
  
He walked back to Mikey and pressed the torn cloth against his brother's wound. "So," he began casually, kneeling over him. "Is vanity a recent thing or have you always carried pieces of mirrors around with you?"  
  
Mikey swallowed, said nothing, and looked away, unable to face his brother.  
  
"Take it from me on this one, train-track wrists ain't a good look for you," Raphael said coolly.  
  
"What do you know?" Mikey shot back.  
  
"Plenty," Raphael muttered darkly, not loud enough for Mikey to hear over the noise of the pouring rain.  
  
_I'm breaking the habit_  
  
He gritted his teeth, knowing that he would have to delve deep into Mikey's soul if he was going to bring him back out again. "How did it start?" Raphael didn't need to ask when, as he had a rough idea. Mikey thought that no one would notice his change in attitude, but Raphael had. He'd seen all the signs, and he was mentally beating himself up for not acting sooner.  
  
Mikey looked up and saw a great amount of sincerity in his brother's eyes. For some reason he could not figure out, he felt secure talking to his brother. He sighed, and summoned all the courage he could to explain to his brother what had happened.  
  
He explained that he'd seen the little girl die in the alley, and how he'd been powerless to help her. What Raph asked why he didn't tell anyone about it, Mikey justified that he felt the others would blame him, and that's why he kept it to himself. Then gave a summary of how his life had slid deeper and deeper into the downward spiral in the few months since the incident in the alley. He expressed how angry he'd been, and how anger turned to hurt – hurting himself.  
  
_I'm breaking the habit_  
  
"I don't know if I'll ever get over it," Mikey said, snivelling. He had started to cry at the beginning, as he described the day he saw the girl die, and the tears had flowed steadily throughout the rest of his account. "She was just a kid, Raph. And they took her life away, just like that, without even thinking or caring if she had a family or not. Raph, how could they do that? And why didn't I do anything to help? I should have jumped down there and helped!"  
  
Raphael took his sobbing brother in his arms and held him tight, wishing he could take his brother's pain away.  
  
"Shh," he soothed, grasping for the right words, if there were any, to help his brother. "You're hurting, I know, but it won't bring the kid back. It might make you feel better, for a while, but nothing will change except you. And you won't change for the better, either." He hesitated, then continued, "I saw you fall on the roof just now. I could see you rolling to the edge, and for that split second I saw it, I thought about how I'd feel if I lost you. I guess it's a little like how you're feeling now. If I had lost you I'd be inconsolable. But, would you really want me to start hurting myself like you're doing now? I don't think you would."  
  
"No, never," Mikey breathed, his head still on Raph's shoulder where his brother had embraced him.  
  
"Mikey, let me help you, please," Raphael said, almost begging. "I don't want you to do this to yourself anymore, okay?"  
  
"I'll try," Mikey choked out. He looked up, his eyes large and asked, "you'll help me?"  
  
It was killing Raphael to see his brother so vulnerable, but he remained strong. "You bet, bro. Come on, let's get you home." With that, he helped his brother to his feet and let him lean on him as they slowly struggled home.  
  
_Tonight_  
  
Making sure that Mikey's leg was well bandaged up and that he was safely and soundly asleep, Raphael quietly left his brother's room and walked into his own. He sat on the bed and slowly slipped his wristband off. He studied the four scars drawn neatly into his skin. "One for each time I let him down," he murmured. The scars were fading, but the memories were ever clear. "Not this time," he said. He found the blade hidden behind a photograph of his family on his desk, and threw it in the bin. With that, he switched the lamp off and settled down to sleep.

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Notes: Do you think this has any potential to be extended into a longer, more detailed story? Please r/r with comments.  
  
For those who've read my first TMNT story and then read this, I ain't a one-trick pony, (although I could write some Raph and Mikey songfics for a great number of the brilliant Linkin Park's songs.) I do have something longer in the works, due to be posted when I get back off my two-week vacation.  
  
Thanks for reading.

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End file.
